Their flight is said to be strong, regular, and swift, and may be protracted to the distance of several miles. It is less rapid than that of the umbellus, and the whirring, as they rise from the ground, less conspicuous. As they rise, they utter four or five very distinct clucks, but at times fly in silence.
Their flesh is dark, and the flavor is very distinctly gamy, and is generally regarded as excellent.
In the love-season the males inflate the two remarkable air-bladders, which, in color and shape, resemble small oranges, lower their heads to the ground, open their bills, and give utterance to very singular and distinctly separated notes, by means of the air contained in these receptacles, rolling somewhat in the manner of the beatings of a muffled drum. The air-reservoirs are alternately filled and emptied as they make these sounds. Their notes may be heard to the distance of nearly a mile. When these skins are punctured, they are no longer resonant.
The late Mr. David Eckby, of Boston, furnished Mr. Audubon with a full account of their habits, as observed by him in Martha’s Vineyard, and also on the island of Nashawena, where they were then kept in a preserve. They were observed never to settle down where the woods were thick or the bushes tangled, but invariably in the open spaces; and as they never start up from the thick foliage, but always seek to disengage themselves from all embarrassment in their flight by reaching the nearest open space, they offer to the sportsman a very fair mark. The sound they utter in rising, when hard pressed, is said to resemble the syllables coo-coo-coo. They were observed to feed on the berries of the barberry, which abound on those islands, boxberries, cranberries, the buds of roses, pines, and alders, and on the nuts of the post-oaks, and in the summer upon the more esculent berries. At the West they frequently feed on the seeds of the sumach. They are also very destructive to the buds of the apple, and are very fond of the fruit of the fox-grape and the leaves and berries of the mistletoe. During the planting-season their visits to the wheat and corn fields are often productive of great damage.
Three eggs in my collection, taken from a nest near Osage Village, in Indian Territory, which contained sixteen eggs, measure, one 1.65 by 1.20 inches, another 1.63 by 1.28, and the third 1.75 by 1.28 inches. They are of a rounded-oval shape, more obtuse at one end than the other, and of a uniform color, which varies from a light clay-color to a dark tawny-brown. The eggs are sometimes, but not always, minutely sprinkled with brown.
Cupidonia cupido, var. pallidicinctus, Ridgway.
THE TEXAS PRAIRIE HEN.
Cupidonia cupido, var. pallidicinctus, Ridgway.
Sp. Char. Similar to var. cupido, but above nearly equally barred with pale grayish-ochraceous and dusky or blackish-brown. Beneath white, with faint, but sharply defined, narrow bars of pale grayish-brown. Top of head with light bars prevailing; head-stripes reddish-brown. Male (10,007, Prairies of Texas, Staked Plains?; Capt. J. Pope, U. S. A.). Wing, 8.30; tail, 4.20; tarsus, 1.70; middle toe, 1.50. Female (10,005, same locality, etc.). Wing, 8.20.
Hab. Southwestern Prairies (Staked Plains, Texas?).
In its relations with the C. cupido, this race bears a direct analogy to Pediœcetes columbianus, as compared with P. phasianellus, and to Ortyx texanus, as distinguished from O. virginianus. Thus in a much less development of the tarsal feathers it agrees with the southern Pediœcetes, while in paler, grayer colors, and smaller size, it is like the southwestern Ortyx.